Random updates

I keep forgetting how pregnant I am. This morning I was thinking it was about 16 weeks but then I counted it out and I'm 18 and a half weeks.  This pregnancy has been weird.

Elle brought home a menu she made in school when they were playing restaurant.  On the regular menu was "ledduce", "carrotts", "salid" and "food". On the dessert and drink menu were beer and Oreos.

Joseph is going to have a solo in the upcoming school concert. He's going to be doing the rap portion of "Everybody Dance Now". I plan to tape it and play it to myself every day for the rest of my life.

Our family took a three day trip to Duluth to see the sights and eat at some Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives places.  I cannot say enough good things about The Duluth Grill. It was so good we went twice in two days.  If you go for breakfast order the scotch eggs.  They look funky but they are AMAZING. I also can't say enough bad things about Grandma's. Bad service, loooooong wait times and crappy food.  If you go order whatever you want and then feel bad about it because you could be eating at The Duluth Grill.

If you ever go to Duluth try to take Joseph with you because he will want to visit the Maritime Museum and he will keep talking about it and calling it the "Merry Time Museum" and you will find it so cute that you will be forced to buy him whatever he wants at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

I'm going to be going on another eating road trip this weekend.  My dad and I are going to Kansas City where we will have BBQ and other assorted bad for you foods.  I haven't gained any weight so far this pregnancy but my plan is to shatter that record with smoked meat and other sauced foods.  Shut up.  It's good for the baby.

Breakfast of champions

What Elle ate for breakfast - Her own creation of chunks of mango and pineapple topped with plain yogurt, a sprinkle of chopped dried cranberries and a drizzle of local honey.

What I ate for breakfast - A spoonful of Nutella.

I win.

Two years ago today I talked about my best friend.
Three years ago today I loved my surro-baby.
Six years ago today I talked about poop and my dad was the only person reading my blog.

Yes, I know they sell yogurt in stores

I feel like I'm so busy these days.  This is the last week of summer and it's filled up with doctor appointments, dentist appointments, horseback riding, swimming, babysitting and open houses.  For whatever reason, whenever I'm really busy I feel the need to be even busier.  I have a million things going on this week and somewhere along the way I decided I just wasn't doing enough and I needed to add in cheese making.

Oh, I'm joking.  I'm not making cheese.  Today.

I'm saving that for tomorrow.  Today's project is yogurt.  Yes, homemade yogurt.  It turns out that's a thing you can do.  Yesterday's project was sauerkraut and that's sitting on my kitchen cupboard right now and it's stinking up the whole joint.  Urban homesteading is pretty cool but it does lead to some interesting smells.

That's about all that's new with me other than today at the dentist's office I nearly blinded a woman while trying out the flashlight feature on my new phone.  I would have felt bad but not two minutes before that this same woman was telling me how she didn't buy her kids any school supplies because she figured she already did her part to help out the school by purchasing lottery tickets and everyone knows that the money from lottery tickets goes to schools and those school supply lists are just a big scam by teachers.  You know me.  You know that it was inevitable that sooner or later I was going to seriously injure myself or someone else with that phone.  Aren't you glad that (this time at least) my clumsiness powers were directed towards a deserving target? 

One year ago today my family went on a trip.
Two years ago today Joseph was in the hospital and I got something gross in my mouth.
Five years ago today I had stretch marks.

At the doctor's office

"You've gained a pound!" the nurse reported cheerfully. "The babies are growing nicely."

"Yes..." I responded as I wiped a stray Thin Mint crumb from my shirt. "The babies..."

One year ago today I locked my family out.
Two years ago it was St Patrick's Day.
Three years ago today I did a meme.
Four years ago today I was a boring mommy-blogger.

Speaking of large and in charge...

Elle's not the only one in this house who's a great big giant. I have become rather huge myself. What's that you say? You say you need proof in the form of a fuzzy cell phone picture that doesn't show my face and makes my arm look it's twice the size it should be? Ok, you asked for it.


Need even more proof that I am starting to look like the Woman That Ate Minnesota? Last week I was 13 weeks pregnant and I was measuring 19 and a half weeks. I was pretty much speechless when the doctor told me that. Given that in the past I have always measured less than my actual dates, I was just not expecting to be this big this soon.

Since I am still 10 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight I know it's the babies that made me switch to maternity jeans at eight weeks. The babies, not the nightly bowl of ice cream.

Honsetly, I'm not sure how it is that I haven't gained a lot more weight at this point. Now that the morning sickness has passed (it was a lot more mild than I had expected it to be) I am hungry all the time. I feel like I eat constantly. Sometime I wake up in the middle of the night and have some toast or a bowl of cereal because I'm so hungry.

Everything that I've read says that at this point in a twin pregnancy I should have gained 10-15 pounds. I'm trying, I really am. It's 1:00 pm and I've already eaten a bowl of oatmeal, a banana, a large bowl of leftover spaghetti, a muffin, an apple and cheese, a few peanut butter cups and about 12 glasses of milk. And now I'm hungry again.

Can I just say that the milk consumption is out of control? I guess the babies are building bones or something because no matter how much milk I drink it never seems like enough. I'm starting to think we should invest in a cow rather than continue to pay for it one gallon at a time.

So I guess the long and short of it is that I am huge but not yet huge enough. Not nearly as huge as I'm going to get. I'm not vain, the idea of a fat ass doesn't bother me. I'm just starting to wonder how much longer I'm going to be able to fit through doors.

Oh, and if you need even more proof I'm huge? Look at this picture Stimey drew of me. It's in the first picture on the page. I'm there on the wall, standing in what's supposed to be Minnesota. In spite of the fact that Stimey clearly needs to practice her Minnesota drawing skillz it is the greatest shout-out that I have ever gotten, ever.

Two years ago today Jesse was a little bit of a butthead crab.

This is why I am boring

I haven't had much to say lately for three reasons.

1. My life is uneventful.
2. For the past week I have had the headache from hell and it hurts me to look at the computer screen.
3. I am busy gardening and preserving food. In the past 10 days I have made pickeled rhubarb, pickled cherries, blueberry jam, strawberry rhubarb jam, dried cherries, banana chips, dried kiwi slices, strawberry rhubarb fruit leather, dried banana peppers, rhubarb barbecue sauce (insanely good) and apple rhubarb chutney. I've also frozen a ton of blueberries and strawberries for use later in the year. I am having a torrid love affair with food preservation.

Other than the preservation obsession I do have two peices of news.

1. We have finally mastered potty training. It took a lot of patience and perseverance and tootsie roll bribes and spare princess panties but we did it. We rock.
2. I have started the hormone shots again to prepare for the next embryo transfer. The whole stupid lung collapse threw everything off for a tiny bit but now we're back on track. Most likely we'll be doing the transfer July 27th. Obviously I'm hopeful it works this time but I'm trying not to think about it too much one way or the other. We'll just see what happens and go from there I guess.

Now I have nothing else to share so I'm going to go outside and sing to my tomato plants.

Two years ago today I posted a failproof pregnancy test.

I can spell bananas now (thanks to Gwen stefani)

I have a little word problem for you. If there is a family of four and only three of the people in that family of four eat bananas (and one of them is a toddler) how many bananas should that family have in their house at any given time? The answer, according to Jesse is:


Is it just me or is that a lot of bananas? Do you really need that many of a thing that goes bad about 14 seconds after you get it home from the store?

Now with 97% more randomness

A snowplow just drove by our house at about 90 miles an hour. Yes, a snowplow. Because it's snowing out today. Why do I live in this effing state anyway?

When I took Joseph to see "Horton Hears a Who" I actually got weepy as all the Whos were chanting "We! Are! Here!". What the hell is wrong with me? Who does that? It's a good movie though so you should go see it. Let my know if you cried during that scene so that I won't feel so alone and pathetic in my weepyosity.

Guess what I made for dinner the other night!
Joseph said: I hate yolky!
Elle said: I love pinnochi!

The drug dealers across the street had one of their cars repossessed last week. I guess if you're going to have drug dealers living across the street from you I guess it's probably best to have ones that have not been able to achieve a lot of financial success. Because they're not very good drug dealers. I'm trying to look at this positively ok?

I miss my Sucks Sucks gang. Where my bitches at?

This morning I weighed myself immediately before and immediately after going to the bathroom. I weighed more after I went to the bathroom. That doesn't seem possible.

Here's a message board icon avatar I really like but will never have an occasion to use:

That's all for today.

Please stop saying fish

I loooove watching the Food Network when I am pregnant. It's like porn for me. I just can't get enough of it.

It occured to me today as I was watching it though that there is one food that no on on the Food Network should make or eat or talk about ever again.

I'm talking about fish tacos.

I don't care how good you say they are. I don't care how easy they are to make. I don't even care if they contain magical powers that enable me to fly and become invisible and turn things into chocolate just by touching them.

None of that matters because I can't even hear the phrase "fish taco" without feeling a little ill. Show me someone cooking one and I'll alternate between giggling and feeling sick to my stomach. I cannot bring myself to watch someone eating one.

Is it just me? Or is "fish taco" just about disgusting sounding?